Tantrik8217;s aide was killed: Post-mortem

The report added that an attempt was also made to throttle him. When the grip was loosened, Jain apparently fell down, hitting his head against the wall losing consciousness. quot;Inflammable liquid like alcohol was poured upon his upper part of the body during his unconscious state and a few drops over lower extremities and was set on fire,quot; the report, received 12 days after his death onJanuary 7 stated.

Some of the clothes and other articles have been sent to the Central Forensic Sciences Laboratory CFSL for an advanced test and the result is awaited, Crime Branch sources said.

The charred body of 45-year-old Jain was found in the bathroom of his Pitampura house under mysterious circumstances. In view of the evidence available at the spot, the police had said that his death could have been either an accident or a suicide. Murder too had not been ruled out. The case was later transferred to the Crime Branch.

Another aspect that leads the police to suspect foul play in the case was that an attempt on Jain8217;s life had been made in July 1991 when explosives were planted in his car allegedly by Chandraswami8217;s associate Babloo Srivastava.

Three of Srivastava8217;s henchmen 8212; Virender Pant, Sanjay Khanna and Manmohan 8212; had been arrested in the case. Srivastave had told the police that he had planted the bomb at Chandraswami8217;s behest, a charge that Chandraswami denied.Though once very closeto Chandraswami, Jain 8212; who also dabbled in astrology 8212; fell out with him because of his deposition in the Jain Commission during which he reportedly criticised Chandraswami.

Sources in the Crime Branch said that though the post-mortem report had confirmed that Jain was murdered, they were still looking for evidence against certain influential persons who may have turned against the deceased. quot;We have interrogated a number of people in the case but are yet to come up with something concrete,quot; conceded a senior Crime Branch official.

Two persons 8212; Jai Karan Pahalwan8217;, a property dealer and a former Delhi Police constable and his associate Virender Singh Fauji 8212; are being interrogated.

A Crime Branch official said that the murder had been committed quot;very cleverlyquot;. An empty bottle of liquor was found in the room, and it was a known fact that Jain was a heavy drinker.

His charred body was found in the bathroom with his head dunked and stuck inside an empty bucket. There had been no sign of a forcedentry. It was on closer inspection that the police found that a small piece of the wire mesh window had been removed and the door opened. quot;The position of the body was such that he could have been holding on to the bucket and assumed to have slipped in a drunken state. He used to drink so much that his neighbours say that many a time he was found lying naked in an inebriated state outside his house,quot; the official said.

However, the post-mortem report made clear that the bucket was put over on his head after the death.